I just purchased the book by Shana Alexander. The television film version which includes Lee Remick as Frances Bradshaw Schreuder and Inga Swenson as her older sister Marilyn Reagan. They are both not only memorable. But I kept thinking about them while I was reading this book. This is one of the most bizarre murder cases in American history. When you learn that Frances' sons prefer prison to living at home with mom, I think you have to wonder what is wrong with this situation. Lee Remick earth-shattering performance as Frances is very reminiscent of Meredith Baxter playing Betty Broderick in "A Woman Scorned." Unlike that movie which only lasted two hours, this story was an intriguing mini-series which television has all but abandoned like the sitcom genre. The story of Frances Schreuder is compelling, chilling, and even frightening in the book and less on the screen but it is still worth watching. I don't think anybody would believe a woman was capable of such harm and was not stopped sooner. In fact, her family rejected that she needed the psychiatric problems in the book earlier in her life like in college which may suggest a lesson to be learned. Take care of the problem early before it accelerates. Frances is definitely a narcissist who used her children to gain acceptance and money to gain power and acceptance in a society which really had no interest in her. Sadly, her children suffered. If she was not stopped, Ariadne would have suffered in her hands.
